Carson Kressley says he's shocked to see a rift between Karamo Brown and his fellow 'Queer Eye' hosts Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Jonathan Van Ness ... telling us there was never any such drama when he was on the show.

We got the OG 'Queer Eye' star in New York City and our photog asked him about Karamo's beef with three of his co-hosts.

Carson says there was some good-natured ribbing among the cast back in his day ... but nothing ever rose to the point of someone backing out of media appearances to plug the show, as has been the case with Karamo.

TMZ broke the story ...  Karamo had a falling out with three of his "Queer Eye" co-stars after his mom overheard Antoni, Tan, and Jonathan trashing her son in a hot mic moment on set.

Carson has a message for Karamo and the rest of the crew here ... and it sounds like he's hoping they can patch things up.